Young Blood
by BeGodlyBeLynn
Summary: Now venturing into territory never seen before: Deep, deep Miranda Lawson exploration. Read here about her adventures before joining the Normandy crew. Review, please! :D
1. Spin Cycle

**A/N: Please give me your thoughts! (a.k.a. please REVIEW!) Without further ado, I present...well, this thing. By the way, updates will totally be slow in coming. I have crap to do. D:**

**I wrote this because I find a sore lacking of fanfics that properly do Miranda Lawson justice. This is my tribute to the perfect woman.**

1: Spin Cycle

The dark sky, blanketed with ominous rainclouds, overshadowed a largely empty Los Angeles street. Cars chugged by slowly in the rain, the city silence punctuated only by the occasional car horn or the hum of windshield wipers. The streets were glistening with rain. In the distance, lighting flashed. Thunder rumbled across the sky.

The mood of Mother Nature closely mirrored that of the scene unfolding in a dark alley not one thousand yards from Sepulveda Boulevard. In the darkened, secluded space, four men were standing rather menacingly against the relatively pathetic sight of one girl, her hair slick with rain and her clothes grimy from days without washing.

"Look, kid…" The man sighed exasperatedly. "Your daddy wants you home. He says he's sorry for whatever it is he did, and he'd really like you back. So do I, preferably without a fight. I don't feel like wasting clips or men, and I'd really like to get paid."

"And I've told you before, sir, I'm not going with you," Miranda told him. She had done this so many times that the tremor had long left her voice. "And I don't care about your clips, your men, or your paycheck. You might as well go home."

The man smirked and sighed again in mock resignation. "You really want to do this the hard way, girlie? I can't guarantee the integrity of your pretty speckled mug."

"Take your best shot," she challenged him, blue eyes flashing.

"You've got to be kidding me," he grumbled. "I'm going to fucking enjoy this."

Miranda stood stock-still and watched as the man swaggered towards her, dropping his weapon and cracking his knuckles. She waited for him to take a swing and then—

A terrified scream as the mercenary was suddenly lifted in the air, pulsating with blue, and flung across the alley. He hit the opposite wall and slid to the ground, unmoving.

Before his henchmen could register what had happened, a shadow appeared behind them. Two of the men turned to look just as their comrade seemed to turn his head to look at something, but then it seemed like he was turning his head too far than the body should allow—it was over as quickly as it started. His neck snapped like a twig and he crumpled to the ground. The remaining two started shouting, looking wildly around. Their orders had been to take the girl alive. Confused, they fired into the dark—or tried to. Miranda's biotics flared again and one of them shrieked in pain as her Warp ripped him apart at the molecular level, keeling over and twitching grotesquely before going still.

Pupils dilated in terror, the last man stood among his dead comrades, his weapon hanging slack at his side.

Time seemed to stand still as Miranda and the merc stood, staring each other down. She pretended to strike out at him with a menacing growl. With a terrified yelp, he ran in the opposite direction as fast as his legs could carry him. The girl watched him run, debating the possibility of letting him live, but she decided against it. Casually, almost lazily, she raised the pistol one more time and put a round in the man's back. The gunshot echoed against the cold brick walls of antiquated buildings. Then the sound shivered into silence, and they were alone.

Miranda Lawson sighed. The malnutrition, the lack of sleep, and the overall stress of being on the lam had left her exhausted, even after a relatively mild use of her biotics. She closed her eyes momentarily. As appealing as freedom sounded to her, being on the run was very trying. She had always imagined that it'd be _fun_…like in the movies. Hell, that was part of the reason why she'd left. But only a small part of it. She wanted the means to live her own life, on her own terms, and she was willing to go great lengths to get it, but still…

She was getting tired of running. Even from arrogant, overconfident knuckleheads.

The constant feeling of being watched, and having to measure every step she took, not being able to make calls or send messages without fear of her communications being traced—not like she had anyone to call or message—was not quite as daunting as the knowledge that she was running from everything she had ever known. But what she had known and what she knew now were markedly different. Under the watchful eye of Richard Lawson, she'd known expendability and the crushing fear of failure. She'd had the same constricting boundaries, but they had made a protective circle around a comfortable lap of luxury. Now, without the material goods to hide the bitter taste of reality, she felt free.

After so many years of playing the predator, Miranda finally knew what it felt like to be prey, and it was not a pleasant feeling. But coping, that had been another part of her life before freedom. Her father had hammered three words into her head, a mantra that would supposedly follow her in everything she did. _Adapt, improvise, overcome. _Somehow, even without her father's watchful eye, she managed to follow that mantra to a T.

The only living male left in the alley stepped out of the shadows, his face partially veiled by the darkness.

"Miri," he said quietly. She started, drawn from her trance at the sound of his voice. She nodded, but her gesture said nothing.

"They're getting too close," she said quietly. "We have to get out of here. Far away."

"I know."

"You were right."

He smiled grimly. "How did those words taste coming out of your mouth?" he quipped.

"Like vinegar," she said sourly, arching an eyebrow. "But really…where can we go?"

"Our only shot now is off-world," he said thoughtfully. "We can get aboard an off-world shuttle…fake IDs, or…"

"Let's just stow away," Miranda insisted. "I don't want my father picking up a money trail. Not until we're far, far away."

"Okay."

"Niket?"

He looked into her face. "Yeah?"

She met his eyes. "Thanks for being here."

* * *

><p><em>a couple of hours later<em>

Miranda was the only living thing in a room littered with the bodies of six men, sitting in the corner. She was sitting cross-legged, staring at the crumpled bodies with a strange serenity in her gaze, but in reality there was something else warring beneath her skin. Her fingers twitched ever so slightly. Her head dropped down to her chest.

"Miri! Good news, I've got—_Miri!_"

The voice brought Miranda back to reality and she looked up, blue eyes wide. She opened her mouth to call back to him but no words came out. He shouted her name again.

"Miri!" Niket hurtled into the room, clutching the doorframe, dark eyes looking around wildly. He visibly relaxed when he saw her and breathed a sigh of relief.

"God dammit, Miri…" he groaned. "You scared the shit out of me."

She could only nod. Tears pricked at her eyes, but she angrily bit them back. Niket crossed the room and knelt down next to her.

"What happened?" he murmured.

She shook her head and finally found her voice. "They found us again, Niket," she said flatly. "I don't know how much longer we can keep them away."

"Two attacks in a day? This isn't good."

"I know."

She sighed. "We need to get out of here. They'll be back."

"Yeah, I know, but first things first." Niket pulled her to her feet. "You're covered in blood. Let's get you cleaned up."

"Okay."

Niket waited outside the bathroom, listening to the sound of the shower running. He could hear stifled sobs over the sound of running water and looked away; he could never really handle crying women—even the sound of it. Miranda was…well, considerate (for lack of a better word) in the sense that she let it all out in the shower, where he didn't have to deal with it. She knew his discomfort. Sometimes it felt like she knew everything.

If it weren't for the fact that he sometimes waited outside the door for her to finish her shower, he wouldn't even know that she cried at all.

He pulled his jacket tighter around his shoulders and shivered. It was cold in the apartment, the hot water was sporadic at best, and the lighting gave the blood on the walls an even more eerie look. Sure, it was often worse at home, but still. It was unsettling, and he was eager to leave. The bodies were too much trouble to move.

Niket cast a glance at the closed bathroom door. Miranda was almost done with her shower. He checked his omni-tool, not like he needed to—the girl was like clockwork. Her showers were always exactly fifteen minutes on the dot. He had to admire her consistency. There hadn't really been much of that in his life, ever. Not now, and not anytime soon, either. Sighing, he turned away and surveyed the room, looking for their things. They were leaving tonight—they could not risk detection by her father's men, or, heaven forbid, law enforcement. (That would be considerably worse.) Slowly, he packed their belongings in the two backpacks they used to put stuff in. He took inventory of everything, more out of boredom than anything. When he was done, he had tallied the following:

One dark blue jacket, Miranda's

Three sets of undergarments, Miranda's

One pair of pants, Miranda's

Two shirts, his

Two heavy pistols and thirty thermal clips

Two vacuum-sealed packages of frozen varren skewers

And…what was this…a baby blanket? Niket frowned, lifting the soft pink cloth in his hands. He turned it over. Big, tough Miranda had a baby blanket? He thought of giving her crap about it, but decided against it and slipped it into the backpack. They needed to make some headway.

* * *

><p>(~*3*)~<p>

* * *

><p>The water switched from hot to cold like a bipolar light switch, but it would have to make do. Sobs wracked Miranda's body, her tears mixing with the water cascading down her shoulders. She stood there for a long time, absently going through the motions of cleaning herself up, watching the water turn from clear to dark brown mixed with red. She hadn't washed for a considerable length of time.<p>

Weakness, that was something Miranda never showed to anybody.

She was fairly sure that Niket was standing outside the door and could hear her cry—he did that a lot, puppy-guarding her like a vulnerable new charge—but it didn't matter, really. She felt so wound up inside from all the stress, the stress of running away and fighting her father's mercs and the moral weight of what she'd done bearing down on her chest with every passing second. She knew in her heart that what she did was right, that she would die if she hadn't run, but there was a part of her that still felt guilty for running away from Richard Lawson after everything he'd invested in her.

But that was it, wasn't it? She was not a daughter. But a dynasty. An investment. Her value to her father, if she could call him that, was about the same of that of a share of stocks. If it lost its value, it would be done away with…usually by the exchange of credits. But she had come to grips with her expendability a long time ago. She knew that if she returned to stay, she would be eliminated—she was a flight risk. Killing her father's men—taking lives—was not what disturbed her the most.

What bothered her was not that the mercenaries had gotten close to taking her and that she had no choice. No, they had been more or less incompetent thugs merely looking for a couple of credits to spend on women and booze and new guns. It confused her at first—she knew from her experience that if her father wanted to hire the big guns, like Eclipse or Blood Pack, he would do it. But she understood what he was doing—testing her, feeling out her capabilities. It was as if even in her dash for freedom, she was still being tested. It was as if her escape was simply part of his grand scheme, as if she would be reclaimed and pushed forward once more with a better knowledge of what her genetic makeup had done for her. Well, she would have none of it. She would show that son of a bitch that she didn't belong to him. Not now, not then, and _not ever again._

She was Miranda Lawson, beholden to nothing and nobody. She was a person. She was _human_. And she would prove it.

* * *

><p>"Niket," Miranda stopped abruptly in the alley. "Wait."<p>

He turned, frowning. "What? Do you hear something?"

She shifted uncomfortably. "No…I have to do something first. It's not far. Will you come with me?"

He nodded uncertainly and followed her back the way they'd come. She made a large detour, however, heading for a completely different part of the city. Niket decided not to ask questions when they came to an apartment building.

"Wait here," she mouthed. Quickly, she opened the door and slipped inside.

Puzzled, Niket debated following her. What was she doing? It obviously wasn't for him to see. Well, that was all well and good, but they were on the lam. They couldn't just split up like that. She couldn't just leave him vulnerable out here, where anyone could see—what was she thinking? Why would she keep anything from him? (Well, he knew the answer to that.)

Rolling his eyes, Niket pulled a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it. He didn't smoke out of necessity; rather, it was just a way to pass the time and calm his nerves. Miranda had told him many times to kick it, but old habits died hard.

He should have heard the skycar coming to the stop, or the footsteps, or even the crack of a bludgeon coming down on his head. To his credit, he was unconscious before the sounds could register.

(~*3*)~

Miranda quietly ascended the steps and gently rapped on the door, pressing her face close. "Lanteia?" she whispered. "It's me. Miranda."

A blue eye appeared in the crack in the door, which widened to reveal a young asari standing in the doorway. There was a pistol in her hand, which she hooked back in her belt when she recognized her visitor.

"Miss Lawson," she greeted softly. "Are you moving again?"

"Please, it's Miranda." She smiled weakly at the asari. "And yes, Niket and I are headed off-world. Can you hold your ground down here?"

Lanteia nodded. "I can rejoin you once you leave the planet," she said. "I'd suggest taking her to Illium. She would have a better time growing up somewhere prosperous, and I would have thought of Bekenstein, but it's too easy to find someone there."

Miranda nodded. "Thank you," she said. "I appreciate this, I really do. I wish there was some other way that I could repay you."

The asari simply smiled. "Giving me this is enough," she said. "A chance to put things right. Would you like to see her?"

She paused, hesitated. She couldn't stay long; Niket was waiting and God only knew how many of her father's men were still looking for them. The sooner they managed to get off-world, the better. But she was leaving…and this might be the last time she saw her sister…

"Yes," she found herself saying. "I'd like that."

Lanteia led her inside and shut the door, sliding the dead bolt across before going to join her in the baby's room. The asari picked her up and gently placed her in Miranda's arms. Despite the dark circles under the human's eyes and the cut on her cheek, her entire face lit up when she saw the girl. She smiled a real smile and leaned in towards the girl's face, cooing gently. The baby squealed and reached out with a tiny hand to touch her cheek. A tear escaped from Miranda's eye as she cradled her. The asari felt a pang when she thought of the fact that she was leaving her only family, possibly forever.

Miranda looked down at the peaceful face of her little sister, feeling an odd serenity that she only had when she was around her. But then she realized that she was still nameless, just another specimen from her father's lab. Unnamed. Unloved. Just like she had been. But this girl would not be another Miranda Lawson, she decided. She would have it better. She would have a normal life.

"I want to give her a name," she said quietly.

Lanteia shrugged. "What do you want to name her?"

"I don't really know," Miranda replied, frowning a little. "I was thinking...Solheim, maybe? No, no...that sounds weird."

Lanteia thought for a moment. "How about 'Oriana'?" she suggested. "It's a human name. It means sunrise."

"Oriana," Miranda tried the name on her tongue. "I like that. She's a little ray of sunshine, after all." She handed the baby back to Lanteia. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." Lanteia placed Oriana back in her crib and embraced her friend. "Good luck in your endeavors."

"_Au revoir_," Miri agreed softly. The asari saw her out the door.

"Good night, travel safely," she whispered when she was gone. She stared after for a long time, even though there was nothing to see in the dark shadows of the stairwell. Finally, she quietly closed the door and turned back to the bedroom to hear Oriana crying. Miranda wasn't the only one feeling the loss of her sister, she thought as she cradled the human baby.

When Miranda exited the apartment building, her feeling of happiness had long faded to one of apprehension. She looked up and down the darkened alley, eyes raking the space for her friend. He was nowhere to be seen. Fear rose in her chest and she fought it down, telling herself that he was just lying low. But as she walked up and down the length of the alley, she realized that he was gone. If Niket ever went into hiding for any reason, there were always breadcrumbs. There was always something so that she could tell if he was okay. Tentatively, fearing that it was a lost cause, she whistled, shrill and sharp. She waited. No response. She tried again. There was still no response. The silence pressed down on her ears like a glove.

A hand clamped over her mouth and Miranda screamed, her panic instinct kicking in. She struggled, eyes wide with terror, twisting violently in an attempt to get free. Her hands reached up behind her and clawed at her attacked; her biotics flared but rapidly flickered and died.

"Biotic damping tech, bitch," snarled her assailant. "You're coming with me."

Panic disappeared, replaced by steely determination. There was no way she was going back. This freedom was her one chance, her only chance, to seize her life and make it hers, and if Niket was the price, so be it. With sudden, unbridled strength, Miranda clawed at the hand over her mouth and ripped it free. With the other, she reached for the pistol in her holster and came up empty handed—

She felt something jabbing into her back.

"Nice try, girlie," he sneered. "Any more funny business, and I'll put one in your spine. Clear?"

Tears welled up in Miranda's eyes. "Okay," she whimpered. "Just don't hurt me."

"Walk," he ordered. She obeyed him, shaking like a leaf.

"Please, man, I don't want to die," she sobbed pathetically. She slowly turned around to face him. "You don't want to do this. I don't wanna die. Please, I'm begging you…"

His face softened, a millisecond of weakness, but it was all she needed. Fast as a snake, Miranda lashed out and captured the gun in her hands, turning it around and squeezing the trigger. Her shot hit the man in the face. He keeled over and died. It was kind of anticlimactic, really. Miranda pocketed her gun again and turned away, feeling oddly at ease.

The fact was that no matter how many times a goon poked a gun in her face, or threatened to do things the hard way, Miranda would never let herself back down because no matter what, the truth was this. Their orders had been to take her alive. Her father would not pay for a dead body. But she aimed to kill, and she always killed. Whatever she did, she would do with success. Failure was unacceptable. If there was anything her father had taught her, it was to do things right the first time.

For example, figuring out where the hell Niket had gone—this did not bode well for either of them.

The quiet hum of a skycar coming to life turned her attention elsewhere, to the street outside. Miranda ran out to see a red car lifting off the ground. The windows were tinted, but she could make out the outline of a scrawny, fair-skinned figure in the backseat. In an instant, two and two came together and she was running, running without knowing where she was going and drawing her pistol without knowing what she was doing, but then the skycar was out of reach and all she knew was its destination. She watched it disappear over the skyline, the small bubble of euphoria in her chest rapidly shrinking to accommodate dread.

She'd sworn that she would never return to the place she once called home, but as she stared after the car that'd taken Niket, she realized that there was no other choice but to follow.

She was going to regret this.


	2. We Require Certain Skills

2: We Require Certain Skills

Miranda had never been taught how to conduct a rescue operation. Certainly, she didn't have the resources to fund one, but even if she did, she would never be able to orchestrate it. The reason for this was simple. Rescue, to her father, was a waste of time. Any teammate who was stupid enough or incompetent enough to allow themselves to be ensnared in such a situation was as good as dead. After all, what was the use of devoting time and resources to the rescue of one, inadequate man, while potentially putting others at risk? To her father, it was a waste.

At least, that was his standpoint. But Miranda was human, she had established herself to be such, and so humanity prevailed. The fact that Niket was her only friend probably had something to do with it, as well. Among other things.

As Miranda watched the car disappear, she knew that if she intended to rescue Niket (she did), she would have to return to her father's estate. She would have to return and come back out in one piece. She couldn't do that alone, even with her considerable skills, so Miranda found herself retracing her steps to return in front of a door she'd only just closed.

"Miranda," the asari greeted her. "You're back. Something must be wrong."

"Yeah," she agreed, trying to keep her voice even. "They took Niket. He's been taken back to my father's place, I just know it."

Lanteia nodded. "Come inside," she said urgently. She hurried the girl in and slid the dead bolt shut behind them. "What happened?"

"I think they took him back to my father's estate," she repeated. "That's the last I saw of them. They went in that direction, at least."

The asari shook her head. "No, he wouldn't," she informed Miranda. "Your father never takes prisoners to his estate. He has a place of his own for interrogating captives."

"...What?"

"You didn't know?" Lanteia looked surprised. "I was under the impresssion that you'd went out to learn everything you could about your father before you left."

"I guess I missed that little detail," she said. "I didn't know...do you know where he might be? Niket, I mean. I don't care about my father."

Lanteia frowned. "I don't know," she said. "Not exactly. Your father is a very careful man, but you know that...it's a boat, but nobody knows exactly where it docks or what it's called. Some have tried."

"Can you tell me where they are?" Miranda asked eagerly.

Lanteia shook her head. "I can take a guess," she replied. "I was not one of those who tried to find out. I was not so foolish. But I think, if you broke into his offices, you could try."

"Understood," Miranda said gratefully. "Thank you, Lanteia."

"The guest bedroom is at the end of the hall," she replied. "Get some sleep. I'll upload the address to your omni-tool tomorrow."

"Okay."

(~*3*)~

_I was under the impression that you'd went out to learn everything about your father before you left._

The comment, however fleeting, stung her. She thought she'd known everything about her father. She'd ransacked his business records, turned his computer inside out, even managed to hack his omni-tool. She'd ripped out every drawer in his desk. She'd found out who his mistresses were, that he was once married, that his only daughter had died from a rare strain of an asari disease. She knew his affiliations with Cerberus. Bus somehow, she had missed something. She had made a mistake. A mistake was unacceptable. Miranda Lawson did not make mistakes.

Anger and fear ripped through her body like a blunt sword. She hadn't felt this way since she had escaped from her father, but the pang of failure, of a slip-up, was back with a vengeance. Was she genetically honed to do something like this whenever she made a mistake? Or was it that her father's lessons really had burned a hole in her brain?

A different sort of fear washed over her. If this was the case, then would she ever be truly free?

* * *

><p>Miranda shifted uncomfortably in her perch, watching the street below her from the roof of a grocery store.<p>

She'd only been here for twenty minutes or so, and her legs were already starting to cramp up. She'd spent most of the early morning ducking in alleyways, peeking through the windows and trying to find a weak point to break into the building. So far, it had proven mostly impenetrable. She'd almost been seen. The street held too many witnesses, and she had singled out three patrols of people posing as workers who guarded the place. She cursed under her breath. Her father might have employed brain-dead bounty hunters, but he was certainly nobody's fool when it came to guarding his own place. Even getting into the neighboring building was a challenge; Miranda had been forced to cut the power lines and use the fire escape to get to the roof. Even then, she'd almost been caught. She bitterly reflected on how escaping his estate would have been impossible without Niket and Lanteia to break her out.

Although Lanteia spoke much for her desire to atone for her past crimes, Miranda always suspected that her motives for helping her were not entirely pure. She suspected that the former merc wanted to exact revenge on Lawson for some reason, one which Miranda never bothered to find out. If she wanted revenge on her father, fine. He deserved it, as long as she and her sister could have their freedom. She knew little about the woman, only that she was about matron age and had a long history with the life of a mercenary. There was little reason to trust her, but there was also little choice in the matter.

Niket was a different story. He was in it for her, in it for him. He held an interest in her, perhaps more than was normal of most people, but she welcomed it. His interest meant his allegiance. She considered him a friend, true, but he was still—or had been—her father's pawn. His motives, however, seemed relatively pure. He, too, wanted to escape from under her father's thumb and maybe get filthy rich while he was at it. However, he didn't share her desire to ruin his empire before she left (which she'd done...partially) and she sure as hell didn't trust him enough to tell him about Oriana. Ironically, it was Niket who'd first told her about her younger twin sister's existence. But that was nothing. As long as he didn't find out, that was.

Miranda sighed and returned her eyes to the street, searching for a way into the building. There was nothing else to do, since Niket was gone and Lanteia wasn't around and she couldn't get anywhere without either of them anyway, so she watched. Hours passed. She slipped in and out of a light sleep, jerking back into wakefulness whenever she drifted off for too long. But through her tiredness and mind-numbing boredom, she discovered two things.

Firstly, the man sitting outside and reading a newspaper watched the door. Every few hours or so, he would get up and walk to the back parking lot. After a few minutes, the other guards would join him, supposedly for a debriefing. Secondly, the door watchman could also be removed by placing a distraction in said parking lot, leaving the entrance unwatched.

Miranda smiled. Suddenly the pieces were falling into place. She quietly left the building, stealing a bottle of iced coffee as she went, and scanned the street. She could provide the distraction herself, but that would leave too little time for her to infiltrate the building and find out what she needed to know without arousing suspicion. She could ask Lanteia, but surely the guards would recognize her. But she had credits in her pocket and maybe she could pay someone, someone random who wouldn't ask questions, but would do a good job of it anyway...

Her eyes fell on a trio of boys, a little younger than she, loitering on a street corner. They were smoking cigarettes, they were carrying skateboards. If she could convince them to help her, they would make a good distraction. Unfortunately, interacting with children was not her strong suit.

"Hey, kids," Miranda said haltingly, trying to look imposing as she approached the three boys on the corner. They regarded her suspiciously, eyes raking over her, sizing her up. She suddenly felt horribly self-conscious. But then she held up a credit chit and their attention shifted to the money in her hand.

"Thirty credits," she informed them. "I'll pay you thirty credits if you can go over to that building in there and make some noise in the parking lot. Deal?"

The one in the middle seemed to be calling the shots. He had a face like a fox, with shaggy blonde hair and shrewd, gray eyes. His eyes flicked to the chip, and then to her. Wondering if he could squeeze more money out of her. Sizing her up.

"Make it forty," he said haughtily.

"Thirty-five," she responded.

He glared at her. "Fine," he said. "Whatever you say, lady."

They ran off without a word. Miranda surreptitiously followed them, taking the other side of the road and carefully watching their movements. She waited for the guards to disappear into the parking lot before running, narrowly dodging an oncoming car, and disappearing into the building.

Almost immediately Miranda realized that something was amiss. The building was completely empty, save for the box offices and desks that typically populated a small office building. Warily, she continued down the hallway, knowing there was likely nothing of value in the desks. The drawers were probably glued shut. (She knew from experience.)

As she rounded the corner, the dread building in her stomach leapt to her throat and Miranda almost reached for her gun, almost. The room was completely empty, completely bare save for walls and floor. In the center of the floor was a flamboyant balloon centerpiece, complete with Mylar balloons and confetti. The largest balloon read, "CONGRATULATIONS" in flashy, red letters.

On the floor beside the centerpiece was a file folder and a small digital frame. Miranda picked it up, already knowing what was inside it without really being sure. She booted it up. It was full to capacity with pictures, all featuring the same person.

Miranda, crouching in an alleyway with her eyes fixed ahead of her.

Miranda, running across the street and looking behind her to make sure she wasn't being followed.

Miranda, perched on the roof and watching the building through binoculars.

Miranda, holding a credit chit out to three scraggly boys.

Following them, looking on as they removed the guards from the entrance.

Miranda, walking into the office building.

She swallowed. There was no greater insult than realizing that one's enemy had always been aware of her movements. How had he known? She must have been seen sneaking around in the morning, that was the only explanation. Unless...

Unless Lanteia had sold her out.

It was plausible. Miranda had no reason to believe that she had ever truly stopped working for her father. She had always doubted her motives anyway, and although the building definitely belonged to her father, it hadn't gotten her what she'd needed. Furious, burning from the sting of failure, she opened the file folder.

The folder was empty. Written on it were the words, "ADAPT IMPROVISE OVERCOME."

Miranda had never been angrier in her life.

**A/N: So the chapter title was paraphrased from the song "Young Blood" by The Naked and the Famous. It was free, it was catchy, and it was used in an Invisible Children promotion/video/documentary. What's not to like? **

**I really would like for this story to be told in two parts. The second part will detail Miranda's experiences in Mass Effect 2 and onwards, hopefully by then ME3 will be out. But yeah.**

**Arrivedeci! ^_^**


	3. Lanteia

3: Lanteia

Niket had once told her that she was afraid of failure. Well, either "afraid", or "hated", or both. Miranda corrected him. Yes, she hated failure. Yes, she hated being wrong. But above all, there was one thing she hated most, and it was losing.

No matter how fair the loss was, she was always bitter about losing. She hated it, hated being bested by someone, _anyone_. It was a sign of weakness. Was she not perfect? Was she not engineered to be so? It was a mark of shame. And by her father? That was absolutely unacceptable.

She sat now in Lanteia's apartment, nursing a cup of tea, her eyes fixed on the floor. In the kitchen, she heard the sound of the water being turned off before the matron walked into the room.

"Miranda," she said quietly, firmly. She sounded like a mother chastising her child. The mother she never had. The voice sent shivers down Miranda's spine, but she didn't let it show. She grunted in response, feeling like a rebellious teenager. She was, in a sense of the word.

"Look, I know you're upset that things didn't turn out the way you thought they would, but…" She paused for a moment, trying to find the right way to frame the question. "Was setting fire to the building really necessary?"

Miranda's cheeks burned with equal parts shame and pride. "I'm sorry," she muttered. "I was just…so damn _angry_…"

"And it didn't occur to you that you should've looked through every nook and cranny of the building before you set it on fire? Didn't it occur to you that there might have been something left on the computers?"

"I checked everything." _Nobody taunts me like that. Nobody. Of course I showed him who's boss._

Lanteia nodded. "Uh-huh. And I'm sure that I'm going to believe that."

"Are you calling me a liar?" Miranda snapped, standing up. Lanteia hastily backtracked.

"Calm down, Miranda," she said. "I'm just stating facts. Just think about what we can do now. There's nothing left for us to find in your father's office. The only thing that you've managed to do is tip off your father that you actually do care about Niket's well-being!"

"Well, we can make use of that," Miranda said evenly, her temper slowly simmering back down to something tolerable. She sank back down onto the couch. "My dad will try to use him as leverage, and once we get a hold of him…" She pantomimed a gun going off in her hands. "_Boom._"

"I don't think you should kill him," Lanteia said nervously. Miranda shot her an odd look.

"And why is that?" she asked curiously.

The asari shrugged, clearly ill at ease. "He could be of more use to us alive," she suggested.

Miranda chuckled. "I don't need anything from him, Lanteia. Frankly, it'd be safer to just kill him."

"If you can get to him, that is," Lanteia said, clearly trying to keep her tone neutral. "Fine," she allowed. "Do what you must. But the rescue must be our priority."

"Okay, fine," huffed Miranda. "Niket helped me, so I'll help him. No sidetracking. Okay?"

Lanteia nodded, still looking rather uneasy.

"Are you with me on this?" Miranda asked her, eyebrows raised.

After a brief hesitation, Lanteia nodded.

"I'm with you," she said.

"That's all I ask."

* * *

><p><em>a week earlier<em>

"Miranda?" There was a knocking on the door. "Miranda, open up."

"What?" she grumbled. She wiped her tear-streaked face with a towel and refused to budge.

"I think we need to have a talk," the voice on the other side said. "Seriously."

"Go away, Niket," she snapped. "Leave me alone, okay?"

He sighed. "If you insist…"

There was a clinking of keys from the other side of the door, and then a little click. The door swung open.

Miranda rolled her eyes. "Are you serious?" she complained.

He shrugged. "I hate to be the one to break this to you, Miri…but it seems like you're a little at war with yourself."

"What do you mean?"

He gestured to her, resisting the urge to facepalm. "You're sitting in a crumpled heap on the floor with a tub of ice cream and a wet towel! Twenty minutes ago you were saying this was the best decision you'd ever made! And yesterday you were going crazy chucking knives at your dad's hologram."

"Your point?"

This time, Niket did facepalm. He resisted the urge to strangle her from sheer frustration. "Look, Miranda…" He glared at her. "You're my friend and all, and I'm glad to help you get away from your dad, but I don't wanna be stuck with you if you're going to be bi-polar and PMS-ing over your dad being furious or sad or betrayed or whatever and then getting up and saying that life is fucking awesome because dad's not around."

"Well, yeah, because it's _true_!" she cried. "He spent so much money to create me and now I went and ran away and he's gotta be so sad…"

Niket sighed. "Do you want me to take you back?" he groaned. "Because that can be arranged."

She immediately sobered up. "Oh, nonono that's fine," she said sweetly. "I'm glad to be away from my father."

He groaned in frustration again and shut the door behind him. "_Women_," he grumbled.

As he turned away, he thought he heard her laughing.

* * *

><p>Lanteia was a remarkable woman from an unremarkable family who had done some rather remarkable, sometimes respectable, mostly regrettable things in her life. She was born purebred in an age when the trend of sticking close to home was dying out like the drell on Rakhana. Lanteia was the middle child of three sisters, all purebred asari, and bore the stigma of the taboo the way she was expected, with submission and respect. She was a very quiet girl for most of her childhood.<p>

There is a point in everyone's life when they find that they are forced to break their silence and speak what they perceive to be the truth. The moment came for Lanteia when the possibility arose that she just might be a member of the ignored, oppressed (and often rightly so) so-called genetic cult of asari society; a feared woman, a murderer, but not by choice.

The name was hardly ever spoken; there were many myths and few truths surrounding the genetic condition. There was always talk of gene therapy, "safe bonding", extermination...but the power to reproduce, held sacred in nearly every species, was especially vital to asari. The notion of someone who could never do such a thing, to pro-create, was scandalous, unheard of, and frowned upon. Naturally, the Ardat-Yakshi were swept under the rug.

The first clue was the first death. Lanteia's oldest sister had come home screaming in terror about her human boyfriend, a young merc, dead on the floor of the bedroom. The normal motions of a murder investigation, that is, the detectives and the crime scene, rolled in. Lanteia's sister and her family had been questioned, as well as friends of the dead merc. When his death was attributed to that of an Ardat-Yakshi's bondage, however, the detectives abruptly disappeared. Agents with different badges showed up. Lanteia and her younger sister, Pernilla, were placed on an Ardat-Yakshi watchlist. They were given the choice of a life in solitude or a life in a labor camp off-world.

Terrified, Pernilla chose to live in solitude and cut off ties from everyone who knew her; Lanteia was expected to do the same. Instead, she rebelled, running away from home and changing her name and never looking back. She ran with several merc groups, notably Eclipse, before ending up in the employment of Richard Lawson. She never mated with a soul. She never discovered whether or not she was an Ardat-Yakshi. She never tried to discover the fate of her second sister. She didn't want to know.

The second, and final, clue came years later. Her second sister, Liara, was attacked in her secluded home by a stray band of batarian pirates and kidnapped. Desperate for her freedom, she mated with the batarians' captain, who died, and made her escape. She was branded a fugitive, flagged as a runaway Ardat-Yakshi, and hunted down by justicars. By then, Lanteia had decided that she would never try to find out whether she was the same as her sisters.

In Richard Lawson's newest (well, almost newest) charge, she found that she felt a strange kinship with the girl. Perhaps this had been part of the reason why she'd been willing to help her, because she saw Miranda as the daughter she'd never had. But at the same time, she was scared of her. Miranda pretended to not know her strength, but she did know her strength, and sometimes Lanteia felt that she took things much too far. The torching of Lawson's office building had been only one example. If things went wrong, she thought dryly, a lot more could go up in flames than just an empty building.


End file.
